Level 1 Fallen

When Bella first said that she was going to burn down the dungeon, I thought that she was exaggerating to vent her anger. My thoughts quickly changed in the next room, when she began shooting fire bullets at every single item in the room. It took me a moment to realize how she was doing that, before I recalled that she could simply downcast her chaos firearm skill to one of its original skills and shoot fire bullets. The power might be lower than her higher tier skill, but few monsters could remain still while actively burning.

Diane’s method of checking for monsters was to brush against them with threads, triggering any who would respond to movement. However, as we had seen before, this led to several mimics evading her detection due to their patience… much to Bella’s chagrin.

Bella’s method, however, resulted in everything taking some form of damage. Bookshelf? Burned, its books ablaze. Paintings? Torched and screaming. Even the doors were not spared her wrath, which turned out to be a good thing when one of them tried to strike back.

As soon as any item reacted to Bella’s flames, Diane and I both followed suit with our own attacks to finish off the confirmed mimic. There was, however, one rather significant side effect to this method of mimic hunting…

I couldn’t help but cough as we ascended the stairs, passing through a thick cloud of smoke. Most of the actual building, such as the floors, walls, and stairs, were made of stone. Thus, they wouldn’t burn so easily. However, this was a tower, so all of the smoke from all of the more flammable items naturally climbed higher.

Not to mention the wooden supports on the lower floors, which I had to extinguish with Water King after verifying that they weren’t breathing. If I had left those burning, it was entirely possible that the dungeon could collapse in on itself, with us still inside.

That said, I had offered to use my own fire skills to sweep the rooms more quickly, but Bella flatly refused. She was on a personal vendetta, and wanted to scorch this entire dungeon.

Shaking my head, I simply created a floating sphere of water, giving it a command to douse any item that did not react to being set on fire. It had been a while since I used this feature of my ki projection skills to have them act semi-autonomously, but it saved me quite a bit of trouble.

On the third floor, we emerged into what seemed to be a large treasury, a mountain of gold and jewels piled higher than our bodies. My eyes widened at the sight, and Diane froze. Bella, however, simply aimed her pistols forwards and began rapidly pulling the triggers.

Small, flaming bullets shot out and scattered their embers across the mountain of treasure. Although I felt it was a waste, even I knew that a pile of treasure like this was suspicious. And sure enough, the treasure pile began to shake shortly after Bella had shot it.

I briefly appraised the monster, letting out a sigh of resignation. “Treasure Mountain, level two hundred and forty. I can’t appraise its skills, other than ‘Treasure Eater’.”

This time, it was Diane’s turn to have a look of irritation on her face. “So that’s why… Drake, can you kill this thing quickly? I want to get out of here and find somewhere else to train.”

“Agreed! Probably for different reasons, but agreed nonetheless!” Bella shouted, pulling out a sleek, silver rifle that was missing a barrel. Instead, it had two progs at its tip that released gentle light.

Realizing that this should be her new energy rifle, I shook my head. Focusing, I conjured giant snakes of flame and darkness with the command to destroy the moving treasure pile.

The flying serpents hissed as they dove into the mountain of glittering coins and jewels, burrowing holes through its body. They twisted and turned within it, hollowing it out until it stopped moving. A monster like this wasn’t really enough for us to go all-out on, so I made quick work of it.

As the monster collapsed, I looked over at Diane. “I get why Bella wants out of here. Not really sure why you’re so irritated at this dungeon now, though.”

Diane let out a small sigh. “We haven’t run into an actual treasure chest the entire time we were here. I thought that it was strange, until you mentioned that thing’s skill. If I’m right, you should get all of the treasure that the three of us would have gotten from looting the chests on the way here once you loot that thing.”

I blinked, stepping forward and looting the boss monster instead of harvesting it. Sure enough, I was presented with a list of more than a dozen items, though most of them were simply coins and potions. Seeing my reaction, Diane knew that she had been right. “This is actually a really dangerous dungeon, depending on who comes to conquer it.”

“If it was the Twisted Eye attacking the dungeon, with their human wave tactics, this boss monster would have absorbed hundreds of items, no doubt becoming stronger for each one it absorbed. So, the more people they send in to wear it down, the stronger it would get, and it would likely not become any weaker after they gave up, not until something killed it.”

“I see…” I scrolled through the loot list, soon finding a single skill book. “This thing dropped a skill, if you’re interested?”

That caught Diane’s attention, at least. “What is the skill?”

“Forge Value,” I answered, pulling out the skill book to hand to her. However, Diane simply looked at it for a moment before shaking her head.

“No. That sounds like a skill to twist the value of an object. Anyone who found out I had a skill like that would never be able to trust me in a business deal again. We can’t even sell it, because the skill itself is likely illegal to use in every country that knows of its existence. Better to just destroy it.”

“Oh!” Bella’s eyes widened, a spark of hope in her gaze. “Can we destroy the dungeon, too? If this is producing an ‘illegal’ skill, it should totally be alright to destroy the whole thing, right? Right?”

Seeing the look in Bella’s eyes, I let out a quiet sigh. Clearly, being half eaten multiple times in a row had left her with a powerful grudge, one that could only be resolved by the utter destruction of the offending party. “It should be fine. I’ll see what I can do when we leave.”

I had never tried to outright destroy a dungeon before, so I wasn’t sure what would happen. Still, we gathered our loot from the final boss chest, which contained a contract scroll and another copy of the skill book. I tossed both books onto the ground, and then teleported the three of us outside. I could still see smoke pouring out of some of the windows from all the fires that Bella had lit inside, but knew that the dungeon would naturally repair itself over time.

At least, if I didn’t deal enough damage to really break it. I transformed into my draconic form, my head looking up towards the sky. “Gather, condense. Grow. Surge. Destroy,” I muttered, channeling my Martial King skill to create a pillar above the tower. It grew larger and larger, its light becoming denser.

Once the pillar was larger than the tower itself, it slammed down, striking at the roof of the tower. I felt it crash against a barrier, rebounding into the sky. Narrowing my eyes, I sent a mental command to the pillar, ordering it to attack as many times as needed until the tower was destroyed.

Again and again, the pillar crashed down with the intent to crush the tower. And again and again, it was repelled. However, I was beginning to see progress. A faint light lit up around the tower during the third strike, and then a thin barrier seemed to intercept the future attacks.

Every few attacks, the barrier retreated several inches towards the tower, unable to maintain its energy. The air was filled with the crashing sounds of the pillar grinding against the barrier. And once the barrier had retreated back to the roof of the tower itself…

One final crash filled the air, accompanied by a resounding crack. The pillar slammed through the barrier, crushing downwards into the ground as I erected my own barrier to protect us from the shrapnel.

Bella looked immensely satisfied at the destruction of the dungeon, while Diane seemed intrigued. As for myself, I was busy looking at a window that had appeared in front of me. To my surprise, my action had earned me a skill called Dungeon Breaker. I hadn’t expected to earn a skill like this.

Reading through the skill description, it allowed me to destroy the protective barrier surrounding dungeons, allowing them to be attacked normally. So, if we came across truly harmful dungeons in the future, would it be possible to destroy them? There were probably more restrictions to consider, such as the level of the dungeon, or its specific type. This was definitely not a novice skill, though. I’d be surprised if it was anything short of a master level.

“Is everything alright?” Diane asked, noticing how I was gazing at the invisible window. I knew that there was no reason to keep the skill secret, so I told her and Bella both about what I had just received, causing their eyes to widen in surprise.

“Well, there aren’t really that many dungeons that I would say need to be outright destroyed. Now, if we came across one filled with roach-type monsters, I would absolutely suggest you grind it into dust and scorch the land around it. But otherwise, I don’t think it’s strictly needed,” Bella muttered, despite having been the one to insist on destroying this dungeon in the first place.

“There could be other factors involved,” Diane added. “For instance, if a very high level dungeon appeared in a low level area, its presence could cause the deaths of countless people in nearby cities. In situations like that, destroying the dungeon is the best answer. Normally, they would arrange for parties to conquer the dungeon until the key dropped, and then use the key to seal it. However…”

I thought back to the sea dragon dungeon that we had encountered before. “Right… there are times when the seal is lifted for various reasons, and the monsters inside start pouring out uncontrollably.”

“Either way!” Bella clapped her hands, cheering herself up now that she had avenged her humiliation. She used a quick Clean skill to wash away the filth and slime on her body. “Let’s find a somewhat better dungeon to use for our training, yeah? Preferably one where I’m not being eaten, drooled on, slimed, licked, or regurgitated.”

I felt my lips twitching at her requirements, a chuckle escaping me. “I think that we should be able to find something like that.”

After saying that, I retrieved the respawn stone from the ground, and summoned the car to take us further south. There would surely be more dungeons to find, and there were still a couple more days until Hammerhead had promised to deliver the new equipment for these two.

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